What does Tom Brady bring to a locker room? This story says it all

Twelve-year NFL veteran and Super Bowl champion A.Q. Shipley currently holds a 9.2 handicap and says the driver is the best club in his bag, thanks to a reliable carry of 300-plus yards off the tee. But on this week’s episode of Subpar, much of the conversation centered not around Shipley’s golf game but his football career, and especially his time playing on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers alongside Tom Brady. What was it like being in the presence of the NFL’s GOAT? Shipley shared a great story with hosts Colt Knost and Drew Stoltz.

“I’ve never been around somebody like that,” Shipley said of Brady. “I’ve been around great players. I’ve been around Larry Fitzgerald and Ben Roethlisberger, Andrew Luck and Reggie Wayne and all these great players are eventually gonna be Hall of Famers, right? And when [Brady] walked in there — and you don’t realize it until, I don’t know, maybe halfway through the season — but just the way that he elevates everybody around him by holding people accountable. I’ve never seen anything like it before in my life.”

Shipley then cited a specific moment from Brady that made a lasting impression on him.

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“I was watching film after practice one day and you know, the receivers are running, it’s like 7 on 7,” Shipley began. “And I’m watching Brady throw and everybody and you know, he hits this receiver, he hits that receiver, he hits this tight end, he hits that tight end, and then Gronk’s up. So it’s him and Gronk. Hits Gronk over the middle. Gronk turns up field and runs 50 yards for a touchdown after, and it’s just 7 on 7 stuff, right?

“And I was like, OK, I get it. I get why New England was so good for so long, because you would have thought that was a full speed rep in the Super Bowl, the way Gronk caught that, turned up field and finished through the end zone, more than anybody else on that team,” Shipley continued. “And Mike Evans is on that team. Chris Godwin’s on that team. Stud receivers, right? I mean, Cam Brate was a stud tight end, all these guys, but the way that those two ran stuff in practice. I was like, OK, every rep means something.

“And then, now everybody else starts doing that, right? Now the offensive line will pick up. And then when you’re normally breaking in between on a normal Wednesday practice and the offense goes, then the defense goes, while the defense goes, the offense is sitting. Well now Brady’s grabbing everybody and you’re doing a second walkthrough, or you’re doing a short yardage walkthrough, you’re doing a goal line or you’re hitting a blitz walkthrough, right? You’re doing all these extra things, and you do that over the course of 17, 18 weeks and all of a sudden you get 500 more reps.”

“There’s a reason he’s the GOAT,” Knost said.

“That’s exactly right,” Shipley replied.

For more from Shipley, including how he fell in love with golf and his thoughts on Shadow Creek, check out the full episode below.

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